Tried VBS Tools? We Need Your Help!
We have a team working on updating VBS Tools Online – Lifeway’s event management software. We would love to hear from churches who currently use, or have previously used, VBS Tools to know what works well, what you would like to see changed, and what you wish VBS Tools could do that it is not currently designed to do.
Also, if you have a new name suggestion for the software we would love to hear that as well.
To comment you can reply to this post or send your suggestions to [email protected].
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Oh, by the way, the two Nashville Previews for this week are full, but there is still room February 8-9 in Kissimmee, Florida. To join us go to lifeway.com/vbs and click on the events tab.
VBS Lifeline?
I personally think it is great!
We usually send out a letter with all the kids class assignments. Every year I have to export all the VBS registrations from Lifeway VBS tools into an excel file to do our letter/mail merge. It would be nice if VBS Tools could go ahead and combine the families (or same registration addresses) Otherwise it will print one per person instead of one per family.
I am like the name.
These items maybe available and I just do not know how to use VBS tools well enough.
1. Videos or instructions on how to do basic things like:
— inputting a child
— creating classes
— inputting and tracking attendance
— printing attendance sheets
2. Export to excel the registered attenders
3. Simpler way to check volunteers as approved
VBS Tools needs an easier import/export feature for registration data so we can import/export to ACS.
We have used VBS online tools for 4 or 5 years. We love the capabilities it offers.
The one suggestion we have is when you assign volunteers roles at the bottom of their information page it should enroll them in this role in the class. Having to build the classes by assigning the volunteers separately seems redundant.
Thanks,
Linda
I love love love VBS tools on line!
I just have one request; I would like to see the set up changed so that it would be more difficult to accidentally deleting previous years data. I had an helper that did the accidental delete one year.
Fortunately I had all the information as hard copy, now I download it to excel (just incase). So, thank you very much for having it set up so we can download it for future analysis. Please continue to have the downloadable data option.
Thank y’all much for your work! In Christ, Deley 🙂
My co-director and I used VBS Tools last year, and it was a very helpful addition to our administrative toolbox.
Our one suggestion: When we wanted to send an email to either a registered learner’s family or to a volunteer, we had to manually input their email address; this was very time consuming. We would have liked to see a feature where a last name could be typed in, and then a list of email addresses related to that name pops up. Or a feature where we can select to send an email to a certain person just by clicking on their name from the registration page.
I hope that was clear to someone in charge.
I’d like to see a module for Student VBS…we use the curriculum for D-Now. Basically, just different graphics.
It would be great if we could use the program to customize the landing page for our church. Perhaps add our own photos, links to our website/blog/FB page, announcements, information, etc. This would best be done by giving us the capability of adding/editing ‘blocks’ of information with text and/or graphics. It’d be great to have the ability to use ‘stock’ images (that beautiful art created by your team) or to upload our own (last year’s VBS, etc.).
I would love for you to add more marketing & communication tools. As you know, so much of our VBS promotion is done electronically via e-mail and social media. I would love to have the capability of sending a ‘form letter’ email that was we could customize with our church information. It’d be great to have the ability to send targeted emails to volunteers and parents/learners–for recruitment/registration, appreciation, or even just newsletters. Again, something we customize to fit our needs.
It’s been 8 months since I’ve used VBS tools, so I’m a little fuzzy on the workings…but I remember when I add classes with their leaders/helpers there are some issues. I think when you can add the lead teacher on one screen, but you have to add the assistant teacher on another screen…or pull it from a larger list of volunteers. Maybe if we didn’t have to assign ‘roles’…perhaps pull from a master list of volunteers. Also, when I’m adding the classes, volunteers…it would be SO GREAT if I could create their record on that screen. Like, a pop-up to add their information…rather than having to back out of that screen and go to another place to create their volunteer record.
I’ve condensed these descriptions, but feel free to e-mail me if you want more info. Thanks for listening and providing us with tools to be effective!!
I love so many of the suggestions already posted! I would like to add one problem that we encountered last year. We use a mix of mac and pc computers throughout our church. We had no problems running reports on pc’s, but the website seemed to have a lot of problems running on the mac’s. It would be wonderful it the tools could run on any computer and in any browser.